Hello!
I would like a step-by-step explanation on how to unwrap and flatten a ZTool, export the resulting UV map to Photoshop for painting and editing, and then bring the edited map back into ZBrush 4 and have it wrap around the ZTool as one would expect it to.
All attemps so far have been disasters.
Any and all help is greatly appreciated.
Out of curiosity, why are you wanting to compensate for UV seams and distortions manually rather than just paint what you want to see in 3D and let the computer handle the annoying stuff? Between PolyPaint, Spot Light and ZAppLink you have a very powerful suite of texturing tools in ZBrush.
Anyway, you can use UV Master’s Flatten feature to show the UV’s of your model. Export that as a document, then crop it down to the size of the template’s square. Now paint on the template, save your work, then import that back to ZBrush and apply it to the model. I’m not sure off hand but you may need to flip the texture vertically after importing it.
I’m very comfortable using Photoshop and want to use photographic textures on the UV maps. Quite honestly, texturing is the aspect of 3D work that I’m having the most trouble with and using a familiar editing program seems to be the way for me to get a handle on it. I’ll certainly look into the ZBrush features closely as well.
Thank you for the help!